The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
City council's attempts at greater fiscal prudence found one of their first big targets this week. Council has cancelled, for this year at least, the city's participation in the spring clean-up campaign. If you want to get rid of all of that garbage and debris that accumulated in your yard over the winter and early spring, you'll have to do it yourself. To make it easier, and to council's full credit, non-commercial tipping fees at the landfill will be waived from May 17 to June 10 inclusive. It's not a huge cost saving _ council had budgeted $30,000 for this year's clean-up _ but it is something. Not everyone will agree with the move. Some will see it as a disincentive for residents to beautify their properties. Others might feel it unfairly targets those who lack access to a pick-up truck to get to the dump. Obviously no matter where the city trims expenditures, somebody is going to be inconvenienced. Unanimous consent, or even something close to it, is often impossible to reach. But objectively speaking, telling people they have to take their own spring refuse to the dump is pretty harmless. It might even have the welcome effect of neighbourhoods banding together to ensure everyone's spring garbage is properly disposed of. That's the sort of cohesion we need more of, and which will serve us well in the future if council decides to cut other initiatives on which some people have come to rely. Indeed council must continue to seriously look at spending, if for no other reason than to build its case for the creation of new fees and taxes. Council has grabbed headlines with efforts to glean fees from area cottagers and to implement a new city-wide fee that would have the effect of boosting taxes on low-end properties. From the public reaction thus far, not everyone is on board with these concepts, at least in part because there is still the perception of frivolous spending on the city's behalf. When I talk about reducing expenditures, I'm not advocating, as some have, selling off the Whitney Forum or putting up the 'closed' sign at the Aqua Centre. But with a budget that grows year after year even as the population shrinks, one has to believe there is more fat to trim. One has to believe the same at the provincial level as the government of our MLA, Clarence Pettersen, continues to dig deeper into our wallets. A gas tax hike last year. Never-ending hydro increases. And now a plan to scrap the requirement of a referendum so the PST can rise without the public having its rightful say. Hundreds of Flin Flonners supported Mr. Pettersen in the 2011 election, but it's fair to say this is most certainly not what they had in mind. Now, it's easy to cherry-pick a few bad things about any government. On the balance, the province does do some great things for Flin Flon, no question about it. The problem is that under Mr. Pettersen, Flin Flon remains the redheaded stepchild of northern Manitoba. The real dollars still go to The Pas and Thompson. The real sway is still held by those communities. It would be a bit easier to swallow the constant tax and hydro hikes supported by Mr. Pettersen and his government if Flin Flon were getting more in return. Local Angle runs Fridays.
